December 26, 2010

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! And that Santa brought you whatever you wanted!! For the last month or so, I was a busy elf myself, working on inventory for two craft shows, and thought I'd show you some of what I made.
This was pre-craft show chaos-- trying to sort out what I had already, and what I had to make more of. I set up my display out in the garage, to test it out, which was helpful!

This is my display at the first show, Superstition Farms, a working dairy farm. The event was "Moo-ey Christmas" and featured Santa, hayrides, smores, and a vendor fair on a Friday and Saturday evening. Unfortunately, I did horrible at this show, but it was good practice setting up my booth display. (I don't think any of the vendors did too good; the hayride, petting zoo, and Santa were the main attraction, not us vendors.) The next week, I did a show in downtown Phoenix, the first annual "Phoestivus Market" on a Wednesday evening from about 5 pm to 8:30 pm, and did tons better. This event had a lot of great sponsors to bring people to downtown Phoenix, and it was a beautiful evening for shopping.

Decoupage votive candleholders, made using some of my vintage and found papers-- these look great when they're lit! (they're all sold- yay!- except the Asian newspaper one, second from left).

more decoupage candleholders. The polka-dots on the left were punched from colorwashed vintage sheet music, and the tan paper on the right is actually vintage sewing pattern tissue paper.

I've gotten into sewing felt this holiday season, and I love the way this log cabin stocking turned out!! I'm not sure why no one bought it; don't people hang stockings anymore?? If not, I don't know why- the stocking stuffer presents were always the most fun part of Christmas morning at our house, and it didn't even matter that we didn't have a fireplace. Mom hung the stockings from a bookcase.

another cute decoupage candleholder... I love the way this little guy turned out! Snowmen seem "wrong" to me now that I live in Arizona, but I still love them!

I went kinda overboard making Christmas tree ornaments. I made a number of paper and glitter ornaments, and made a huge mess in the kitchen while I did it. But they do look good hanging on the tree when they sparkle in the tree lights, and thank goodness the Dyson does a good job of cleaning up glitter, among other things!

I've also been making some altered bottle vases; I found a stash of bottles (and other junk) out in the desert, and love the already "aged" finish on them. I can't put out flowers (the cats love to mess with things!), so I like the idea of a vase that can hang on the wall. This one I decorated with vintage music, heat embossing in copper, and a paper vintage-look butterfly, along with some vintage novel text. I love selling things in person, because that way, I can talk to the person looking at things- the woman who bought this said her husband had recently passed away, and ever since, she's been having visions of butterflies, so this piece was "speaking to her" and she had to buy it. I love stories like this, when I get to hear the personal reason behind the purchase!

I also made a number of collages using the 3/4 inch birch plywood I have stashed away. These two pics are horrible lighting (sorry about that!), but I love the way they turned out! They're both 6x6 inch collages with vintage sheet music as the base. The one above features a paper-cut swan, so the "Seven Swans a Swimming" theme was a no brainer to me. I set off the blue shades with some gold accents.

This one is a hand-cut papercut tree, decorated with sparkle glaze, sequins, and glitter candle flames. Again, the focal image was set off with gold acrylic stamping, and I found the perfect quote on the internet. I love Christmas (although it definitely snuck up on us quick this year) and I love crafting, so thanks for peeking at my Christmas crafting!

About Me

I'm a Midwestern small-town girl transplanted to the Arizona Sonoran Desert. If I'm not hanging out with my BF, our three sable Shelties and our three rescue cats, then I probably have paper or scissors in my hands, or glue or paint on my hands. I love scrapbooking and art journaling, I take classes when I can, and I experiment a lot in my art studio.